Via Channel NewsAsia: “China’s highest paid movie star Fan Bingbing … has not been seen in public since July …. The 36-year-old actress has been a household name in China for years and tasted Hollywood success with a role in the 2014 blockbuster ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. *** But she has gone quiet in recent months, following allegations of tax evasion. In [a] report by Beijing Normal University published earlier this month, 100 Chinese stars including popular actor Jackie Chan and award-winning actress Zhang Ziyi were ranked according to their professional work, charity work, and personal integrity. But with a pass requiring a score of more than 60 per cent, only nine celebrities made the cut, with Chinese actor Xu Zheng topping the list at 78. [Ms Bingbing] had a score of zero.” (Hat tip: Tyler Cowen. Credit for the image below: Fergus Ryan.)

Update (10/10): Fan Bingbing has reappeared! According The Guardian (UK), “Fan was detained at a ‘holiday resort’ in Wuxi, under a 2013 legal framework known as ‘residential surveillance at a designated location.’ It is essentially a legalistic euphemism for disappearance and forced detention. ‘In practice it often means someone is held in secret and denied all contact with the outside world,’ says Michael Caster, … [who is the] editor of The Peoples Republic of the Disappeared, a collection of first-hand accounts of victims of such forced detentions. ‘Many of them were subject to one form of torture or another, from prolonged sleep deprivation to physical pain, beatings, stress positions, mental abuse and threatening family members.’ In many cases, the outcome is forced confessions.”